Mega Shark In Malibu

Introduction

A series of undersea tremors release six bone-armoured goblin sharks from their subterranean prison and head towards Malibu beach for a snack or three. Meanwhile lifeguard Heather (Peta Wilson) is having problems with her love life. She's just split from her co-lifeguard (and ex-Navy SEAL) boyfriend Pete (Warren Christie) due to his refusal to settle down and have kids, and is now dating construction contractor Colin (Jeff Gannon). This understandably causes tensions, especially as Colin is currently blocking a public carpark.

Still, life on Malibu beach is just swell with lots of gorgeous guys 'n gals hanging out, sunbathing, playing volleyball, surfing and looking good. Even the loss of a couple of surfing dudes and a pair of paragliding boys doesn't disturb the fun, even when the lifeguards are alerted to the aquatic danger.

No. It's the news coming through of an imminent tsunami that does it. But only after the alarm goes off and the lifeguards have to run down the beach yelling as the feeble minds of the Mailbu young and the beautiful don't understand that an alarm set off by their lifeguards means they should hot tail it off the beach pronto.

Anyway, the inevitable tsunami comes; a tidal wave standing at over 100 feet tall that sweeps everything in its wake but leaves it all standing and puts Malibu 30 feet under water. Which coincidentally leaves two groups of stranded survivors. One set consists of the lifeguards in their intact lifeguard tower, with mega sharks encircling them whilst trying to pick them off one by one. The other set is Colin and his construction crew who quickly drop from four to two.

Can Colin rescue his new love from her submerged tower or will Pete's SEAL skills help against the sharks? Or will screaming blonde bimbo attract the attention of the sharks and they're all eaten?

Overall

Don't be fooled. This title may have Mega Shark in the title, but this is not a release from the geniuses at Asylum behind Mega Piranha or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Oh no. This is instead a made for TV effort originally called Malibu Shark Attack. That said it's not too bad as B-movie fodder goes, well in parts anyway.

The action and acting within the film isn't bad really, although neither is top notch as you would expect. As usual it's down to the script and the sfx. One of the problems with shark films is that once you're out of the water, there's not really any danger. A good way to resolve that problem is to have a tsunami and put everything under water. Except the sharks were there first and would have been swept away too, non? Along with possible the strongest lifeguard hut on film ever…

The CGI really does let this film down with the sharks looking incredibly unrealistic and lifeless, and the less said about the 100 foot high tidal wave the better without even taking into consideration the massive plot hole that would have buried everything in water and swept it away. As you may be able to tell, this film first appeared on Sy-Fy. Going back to the sharks for a second, clearly there's only so much you can do and endlessly using the same CGI shots is one of those, the other is using the old fin in the water trick - which may have worked in 1978 for Spielberg but is done to overkill here, with even the composer liberally pinching elements of the infamous Jaws theme.

And that's apt as this film really does try to be a cross between Jaws and Deep Blue Sea (you remember that?). That it fails to be either is no real surprise…